Feb. 19, 1880] 



NATURE 



373 



lower tributaries of the Roseau River were very little 

 swollen. 



The scene of the eruption is about eight miles east from 

 Roseau, and the volcanic ash was blown to the west, by 

 the trade wind, in a narrow belt about one and a half miles 

 wide. There is, unfortunately, no means of ascertaining 

 the extreme limit of this belt ; but a small vessel, which 

 was about four miles out at sea at the time of the 

 eruption, experienced a shower of ash similar in every 

 respect to that which fell in Roseau. The area, then, 

 over.which the ash fell must have been at least twenty 

 square miles. 



On the 1 2th of January, I visited the Soufriere district, 

 and found that a volcano had opened up about a mile to 

 the south-west of the Boiling Lake. The Grande Soufriere 

 lies in the depth of the primeval forest which covers the 

 greater part of Dominica, so that no loss of life occurred ; 

 but for a considerable distance beyond the crater the trees 

 have been destroyed, and the earth is covered several feet 

 deep in some places, with volcanic debris. Here and 

 there, stumps of blasted trees sticking up a few inches or 

 a few feet from the gray ash give a striking evidence of 

 the force of the explosion. Most of these stumps have 

 been quite shattered by the ejecta, and in many were 

 found embedded large pieces of trachytic rock. I did not 

 observe any traces of fire, but on scraping away the ash 

 from the ground at some distance from the lip of the 

 crater, large splinters of wood and a few bleached leaves 

 were discovered. Beyond this zone of desolation, the 

 forest has been destroyed to a great extent by a whirl- 

 wind which appears to have occurred just before the 

 •eruption. Branches of trees, broken and twisted off from 

 the parent stem, have fallen to the ground, and by their 

 weight have crushed down all the forest undergrowth. 

 In spite of the heavy rains, which had been almost 

 continuous since the time of the eruption, I found the ash 

 still tenaciously clinging to the leaves and the trunks and 

 the branches of the trees. The swollen streams which 

 run through the ravines radiating from the volcanic 

 district, were in many places dammed up with large 

 pieces of sulphur and pumice, and with splinters of wood. 

 On reaching the lip of the crater, which was a work of 

 some difficulty on account of the depth of the ash, the 

 bottom was seen about 600 feet below. This appeared to 

 be cooling down, for although commotions were observed 

 in several places there was no flame or glow visible. 

 Here and there, columns of aqueous vapour ascended 

 and widened out into clouds before reaching the lip, so 

 that the bottom of the crater could only be seen at 

 intervals. The crater is ovoid, with its long axis running 

 in a direction from west-south-west to east-north-east and 

 the lowest part of the lip, as measured by the aneroid baro- 

 meter, is 2,61 5 feet above the level of fhe'sea. At the north- 

 eastern extremity there is a break in the side of the crater, 

 and through this a quantity of volcanic mud poured into the 

 Point Mulatre river, which flows towards the eastern side 

 of the island ; it would appear that an enormous quantity 

 of the gray mud was thrown out, for it is stated that at 

 one ^time the bed of the river was nearly filled up, but 

 since the eruption most of the mud has been carried out 

 to sea. 



Large masses of pumice and sulphur are seen in the 

 vicinity of the crater ; and I picked up, near to the lip, 

 pieces of felspar and porphyry. Rocks containing augite 

 are found in abundance, and the solid ejecta lying about 

 in all directions are composed for the most part of grey 

 trachyte, containing a large proportion of iron pyrites. 

 "Were these trachytic rocks pulverised they would form, 

 with the addition of sulphur, a sand similar in appearance 

 to that which fell in Roseau at the time of the eruption. 



Strictly speaking, a new crater has not formed, for the 

 eruption was only the breaking into activity of an old 

 volcano. The Grande Soufriere district formerly included 

 foursolfataras and the Boiling Lake, and the most active of 



these solfataras was situated in the crater of the volcano 

 which has again become active. With the exception of 

 a part of the bottom and southern side occupied by the 

 soufriere— as a solfatara is called in the West Indies— the 

 crater was clothed with trees, many of which were of large 

 size and considerable age ; and a stream of strongly fer- 

 ruginous water rising at its south-western extremity, ran 

 through the ovoid basin and found an exit at the break 

 in the north-eastern side. The path to the Boiling Lake 

 passed through the crater, and the north bank of the 

 chalybeate stream — which has now entirely disappeared 

 — was the usual place selected for an encampment by 

 those visiting the lake. No earthquake was experienced 

 at the time of the eruption ; and beyond the peculiar 

 thunder there were no sounds, similar to the booming of 

 cannon, which are usually mentioned as concomitants of 

 all manifestations of volcanic energy. It is also to be 

 noticed that there was no flow of lava, and on my visit 

 to the volcano, I found no trace of this usual educt of 

 an eruption. It may be that the resistance to the volcanic 

 force, was too small to cause much tremulation except in 

 the immediate vicinity ; and the surrounding country is 

 of so rugged and broken a nature— dislocated rocks, and 

 sharp ridges alternating with deep ravines — that a seismic 

 wave would be propagated with difficulty. 



The ash and sand which fell in Roseau, was similar in 

 many respects to that ejected from Tomboro in April, 181 5, 

 for on that occasion the Commander of the H.E.I.C. 

 cruiser Benares, reported concerning the ash which fell 

 at Macassar, " though an impalpable powder or dust 

 when it fell, it was, when compressed, of considerable 

 weight ; a pint measure of it weighed twelve ounces and 

 three-quarters, it was perfectly tasteless, and did not 

 affect the eyes with painful sensation, had a faint burnt 

 smell, but nothing like sulphur ; when mixed with water 

 it formed a tenacious mud, difficult to be washed off." ' 

 The ash which fell in Roseau was heavier, for a pint 

 measure of it without compression weighed twenty-one 

 ounces and fifteen drachms ; this heaviness may however, 

 be accounted for by the large proportion of iron pyrites, 

 and the presence of this mineral was the cause of the 

 metallic glistening first noticed when the ash fell. 



M. Bert, a resident in Roseau, has made a qualitative 

 analysis of the ash, and he informs me that he found 

 the following bodies : — ferric sulphide, magnesia, potash, 

 soda, silicon, sulphur, carbon, oxides of iron, lead, and 

 alumina. M. Bert also found traces of other bodies, but 

 their proportion was so small that he was unable to 

 determine their exact nature with the means at his 

 disposal. H. A. Alford Nicholls 



JCJXGLE LIFE IN INDIA 2 



OF the many volumes published about the British pos- 

 sessions in Asia not one of them appears to us to go 

 over the same ground as Mr. Ball's " Jungle Life in 

 India." For nearly fifteen years the author, as one of 

 the staff of the Geological Survey of India, was engaged 

 in the work of the survey in parts of the Central Provinces 

 and of Western Bengal far out of the ordinary tracks. 

 Fond of sport, an excellent ornithologist, and a good 

 botanist, there was much to engage his attention outside 

 the ordinary routine of his daily duties — duties indeed 

 which by their very nature brought him into everyday 

 contact with all sorts of natural objects, both great and 

 small. A specialist, it is true, has the proud satisfaction 

 of knowing the subject he works at perhaps better than 

 any one else, but he too often acquires the knowledge by 

 the sacrifice, dismal to contemplate, of his love for almost 

 all other subjects, and he can look for sympathy with his 



, Memoir of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, K.R.S. London, 1S30, p. »a6. 



= "Jungle Life in India: or. The Journeys and Journals of an Indian 

 Geologist," by Valentine Ball, M.A., of the Geological Survey of India. 

 London : Thos. De la Rue and Co., i8?o. 



